At last month’s Brigham Innovation Hub Idea Lab, iHub Chief Medical Informatics Officer Adam Landman shared some staggering numbers: each year, the U.S. spends $2.8 trillion on health care; up to 98,000 deaths per year in hospitals are due to preventable medical errors; and adults receive only 50 percent of their recommended care each year. But there’s another stunning number to consider: 700 million. That’s how many iPhones have been sold by Apple, and each one of those devices has the potential to help improve health care delivery, cost and access.

At February’s Idea Lab, BWHers gathered to brainstorm innovative ways of using iPhone technology to improve patient care and health care delivery. Landman kicked off the session with an overview of how Apple HealthKit works, allowing patients to select any health apps they want to use and opting in to share their health data with their doctors. Patients can record key metrics such as glucose levels and blood pressure themselves. New sensors and devices for automatically recording metrics are being developed. Regardless of what app a patient uses to collect information, all data can be sent to one central repository and shared with the patient’s physician.